Cologne, Germany
Huge tax evasion scandal: German CEOs have been evading taxes for years by stashing money in accounts in Liechtenstein, police said this week. The Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s equivalent of the FBI, said it paid some $8 million to an informant for a CD containing information from a Liechtenstein bank. The first head to roll was that of Deutsche Post chief executive Klaus Zumwinkel, whose home was searched last week as rapt Germans watched live on television. Zumwinkel quickly resigned. Police said raids on prominent individuals would continue for weeks. Liechtenstein, a tiny principality known as a tax haven, is furious at revelations that Germany has been spying on its banks. “Germany has clearly failed to understand how one behaves toward a friendly state,” said Crown Prince Alois.
Ebbsfleet, U.K.
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Own your own team: More than 28,000 people across the world have bought shares in an English soccer team. The fans paid about $68 each to join www.myfootballclub.co.uk, which then bought Ebbsfleet United, a fifth-tier team. “It’s the first community Web site takeover of a football club in the world and, I think, of any business,” said MyFC spokesman Will Brooks. The new owners will have a say in which players to hire and, possibly, how much to pay them. “What people like about what we’re doing is it’s closer to grass-roots football, to players earning just a few hundred quid a week,” he said. “And you can have a drink with them in the bar after games.”
Paris
Personalizing the Holocaust: Every French fifth-grader will learn the life story of a different French-Jewish child who was a victim of the Holocaust, President Nicolas Sarkozy said this week. “This is a way of fighting all kinds of racism, all kinds of discrimination, all kinds of barbarity by reaching children through the story of children of their own age,” he said. Opposition leaders, including Socialist Ségolène Royal, welcomed the new policy. But teachers’ unions denounced it, saying 10-year-olds were too young for such an emotional burden, and even some Jewish groups criticized the idea as “exceptionally morbid.” Critics said this was just another example of Sarkozy’s tendency to micromanage French life. Some 11,000 French-Jewish children died in Nazi concentration camps.
Calabria, Italy
Mob boss caught: The top boss of Italy’s most powerful mafia group was arrested this week after more than 20 years on the run. Pasquale Condello, 57, is head of the ’Ndrangheta—a crime syndicate based in Calabria, in the “toe” of Italy—which is considered more influential these days than Sicily’s more famous Cosa Nostra. Condello, convicted of four murders, has been
a fugitive since 1987. His syndicate is believed to have tens of thousands
of members who control the cocaine market in Europe.
Vatican City
Sainthood gets tougher: The Vatican issued new rules this week making it harder to be declared a saint. Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said the new guidelines make clear that candidates for beatification should have a “true reputation for holiness” before being nominated. The Vatican is currently considering more than 2,200 candidates, some of whom have had files open for decades or even centuries. Pope Benedict XVI’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, canonized more saints than did all of his predecessors put together. Over his 27 years as pontiff, he beatified more than 1,338 people and canonized 482.
Pristina, Kosovo
A country is born: Hundreds of thousands of jubilant Kosovars set off fireworks and shot guns into the air across Kosovo this week, as the tiny province declared itself independent from Serbia. The U.S. and major European powers, including Britain and France, recognized the new country’s independence within days. But Russia, China, and many smaller European countries did not, saying recognition would encourage ethnic minorities everywhere to secede. Serbia recalled its ambassador to the United States, and Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica blamed Kosovo’s unilateral decision on the U.S., which he said was “ready to violate the international order for its own military interests.” Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when a U.S.-led NATO bombing campaign ended Serbian attempts at ethnic cleansing in the mostly ethnic-Albanian region.
